Successful software user interface design requires adherence to rules and heuristics that are traditionally available from user interface design literature and user interface standards guidelines. These rules are typically expressed in everyday human-language, and not in ways that computers can readily understand them. Because of this, the act of creating a user interface that complies to standard guidelines is often an ad-hoc process that suffers because different designers often have different interpretations of the same rules. This in turn leads to results that are not easily reproducible.
Several systems and methods currently exist to allow a programmer to develop a user software application. Such systems or development suites include VISUAL STUDIOT™ Integrated Development Environment (hereafter Visual Studio) from Microsoft Corp., DELPHI™ Integrated Development Environment (hereafter Delphi) from Borland Software Corp., and VISUAL CAFÉ™ Integrated Development Environment (hereafter Visual Café) from Symantec Corp., together with the programming languages which underlie these development suites, e.g. C, C++, BASIC, or JAVA™ programming language (hereafter Java). However, with all of these development methods, care must be taken to develop the user interface in accordance with the underlying logic of the application. Although separate tools can be used for each aspect of the development process, the developer (or developers) must typically be aware of each aspect so as to achieve consistent results.
To this end, several toolkits including the JAVA Swing toolkit have been developed to assist in the user interface development process. Newer technologies such as the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and document type definition (DTD) have allowed the development of platform- and application-independent interfaces and layouts. Object modeling techniques such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML) assist the developer in visualizing or managing the interface development process.
Further information about these, and related topics can be found in the following references, incorporated herein by reference:
JAVAJAVA Developer Connection.http://developer.JAVA.sun.com/developer/http://JAVA.sun.com/xml/UMLFowler, Martin and Kendell Scott. UML Distilled Applyingthe Standard Object Modeling Language. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997.SAX ™(SAX XML Parser, hereafter SAX)http://www.megginson.com/SAX/index.htmlSwing ™(SWING User Interface libraries, hereafter SWING)Topley, Kim. Core JAVA Foundation Classes. Upper SaddleRiver, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1998.WWWhttp://www.w3c.orgXMLhttp://www.w3.org/XML/DTDhttp://www.w3.org/XML/1998/06/xmlspec-report-19980910.htm
As used herein the terms Java™, and SWING™ are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. The terms Windows™, and VISUAL STUDIO™ are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The term DELPHI™ is a trademark of Borland Software Corp. The terms Weblogic™, and Weblogic Server™ are trademarks of BEA Software, Inc. The Term VISUAL CAFÉ™ is a trademark of Symantec Corp.
However, each of these tools address only one aspect of the problem—i.e. either the application logic portion or the graphical user interface. There is a general desire in software development to segregate the two goals of the development process (the application logic and the application interface or appearance) so that the underlying application may be reused, and a user interface simply and separately programmed and placed on top.
There is also a desire to have a development system which allows the creation or enforcement of a set of development guidelines, that can then be used to enforce restrictions upon the developer, and thus ensure a level of standardization throughout an organization.